


21 Grams

by okapi



Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Dead Sholto, Dildo-Urns, F/F, F/M, Fantasy Sex, Fem!John - Freeform, Fem!Sherlock, Grief/Mourning, Hearing Voices, Hurt/Comfort, Masturbation, Pining Sholto
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-30
Updated: 2015-07-04
Packaged: 2018-04-01 22:39:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 8,281
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4037203
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/okapi/pseuds/okapi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John receives 21 grams of cremated remains from the estate of the late James Sholto. She finds an unusual receptacle for the ash and hies away to grieve. But even as her mind creates an elaborate fantasy with her previous commanding officer, thoughts of her current commanding officer keep creeping in.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Bequest

On Wednesday, John deleted an email from Bill Murray without reading the subject line.

She always deleted Murray’s emails because they were always invitations, to pub nights and charity bike rides and other gatherings of war-mates that John had no intention of attending. Ever.

Her life was moving forward now; looking back would only make her stumble.

But deleting that particular email on that particular day meant that she was ill prepared for the package that arrived two weeks later.

* * *

John studied the box. Small. She shook it. Light. In the left corner were three names and an address that meant nothing to her. She put on her invisible deerstalker as she mounted the bedroom stairs and deduced: accountants or solicitors.

The box contained a small tin and a large envelope. From the envelope, John drew a single sheet of fine stationary with the three names across the top. She never made it past the first line.

… _the estate of the late James Andrew Sholto_ …

John sank onto the bed.

“James.”

The word sounded foreign to her ears, and it occurred to her that she had never called him by his first name aloud.

Not once. It was always ‘sir’ or ‘Major.’

She turned the envelope over, and a second envelope fell onto the bed. It bore one word:

WATSON

John stared at the envelope as if it were a mythical creature about to sprout horns and wings and not a simple piece of correspondence. She stood up slowly and locked the door.

“Come on, Watson, pull yourself together.”

The voice she heard was not her own. It was a man’s voice, a commanding voice, a voice that brokered no insubordination, a voice that she hadn’t heard for years.

And now, she realized, that she would never hear again.

She ensconced herself at the head of the bed, legs outstretched, pillows bolstering her sides, and opened the letter.

_My dearest Watson,_

_I am dictating this letter via a computer programme for two reasons: first, because the stroke has rendered my right hand as useless as my left, and second, after years of guarding these words so resolutely, I am unwilling to trust them to anyone, save you._

_I love you._

_I loved you the first moment that I saw you. I will love you until my dying day, which, if you’re reading this, has, in fact, come. And gone._

_I love you still._

_Now I am reassured that should another stroke claim me, as the doctors caution may occur at any moment, that the most important point has been captured._

_And I have said it aloud. At least once in this lifetime._

_I’ve instructed my solicitors to bequeath you exactly twenty-one grams of my cremated remains. I trust that the significance of the amount is not lost on you. You always had an excellent memory. You have my heart, have had it since the day we met, so it is only fitting that you should have a soul’s weight of my body as well._

_You will also be receiving a small sum from my estate. It is not an exorbitant amount—the cost of privacy and security is not insignificant these days—but it is enough for you to take a comfortable holiday. Or perhaps treat yourself to some luxury that is out of the reach of an army pensioner. I only ask that you do not save it for a rainy day, deposit it as security against some future calamity. Enjoy it. Now. I suspect that you cannot be spoiled, but I would’ve loved trying, Watson. I would’ve dedicated the remainder of my days and my wealth to the endeavour had I actually possessed half the bravery embodied in the bit of metal and ribbon that Her Majesty was so keen to bestow on me._

_But I am a coward._

_Timing is everything. In war, in peace, in love, in life. There was a moment that I should have seized. I did not. Coward._

_Not in country, of course. The moment that I understood my feelings for you was the moment I locked them away. I would not jeopardize your career—or mine—with indiscretion. I did not want to taint your achievements with talk that they were the result of anything but your own merit, and, honestly, wartime dalliances never held much appeal for me._

_No, the moment was after your injuries, when I scheduled my leave to correspond with your convalescence and visited you in hospital. That was the moment to tell you how I felt, to ask you if you felt the same, and I faltered. Later I told myself that it was because I didn’t want to disturb you unnecessarily in the midst of your rehabilitation, but the truth is that I was afraid of your rejection._

_I still am._

_The moment passed, and I returned to duty, and the rest is well-documented history. When the families of the dead recruits branded me a coward, I considered it overdue. I read your blog during my own convalescence and recognised that you had a new commanding officer and that there would be no more moments._

_Regret is the bitterest pill I swallow these days._

_There is a proper time to die, and one should embrace it when it comes like a soldier. My time is soon._

_But I will take a few more moments to say that you, my dear Watson, the good doctor, the fine soldier, the beautiful woman, are my one true love. And that my memories of our time together, our conversations and shared experiences, are my most prized. I can still see your smile when it lit your eyes and hear your infectious laugh and feel your touch—however professional and congenial on your part—which left me trembling like a schoolboy._

_Yes, you are my one true love, and I remain yours to command,_

_James_

John Watson did not have a Mind Palace or a hard drive for a brain. She could not simply _delete_ information that did not serve her.

What she did have was a drawer full of jumpers. She hid the letter at the bottom of it and shoved it closed with far too much force.

Bravery. Cowardice. Honour. Love.

Abstracts.

John Watson was a soldier (and a doctor), and she dealt in concretes, and the concrete of this situation was, her eyes travelled, sitting on the bed in a metal box.

She pried open the lid. Ash and not much of it, frankly. Whether it represented body, heart, or soul, John was not prepared to speculate, but she was certain that she couldn’t keep it in this. The soldier in her balked at the notion of an unmarked grave, regardless of form. She would find a proper receptacle.

An urn.

Where in the world did one shop for an urn these days? Of course. Where one shopped for everything these days.

The internet.

* * *

John clicked on page after page.

No, no, no. Too big, too ornate, too plain. Back, back, back.

A heading caught her eye.

[Twenty-one grams](http://www.marksturkenboom.com/works/21-grams/).

How appropriate. She clicked.

Oh my.

It was…

odd? morbid? mad?

…perfect.

The seed of an idea germinated in John, and instantly it began to grow, flower, and produce fruit. It was an idea so fantastical that if spoken aloud, John was certain it would garner her alarmed looks, dismissive tut-tutting, and, quite possibly, psychiatric referrals.

But she was just as certain that it _was_ perfect and that she was going to carry it out, world-outside-her-head be damned.

She got her credit card and returned to her laptop.

* * *

 “Sherlock, I’m going away for a couple of days.”

“No, you’re not. Case! We’re going to Bedfordshire!”

“No,” John insisted. “ _You_ are going to Bedfordshire.” John did not understand Sherlock’s expression. Much later she would see it again when Sherlock was confronted by a naked Irene Adler and realise that it was the look of Sherlock’s powers of deduction failing her.

But for now, John just tipped her invisible hat in farewell and headed down the stairs.

“John!” Sherlock’s voice was distant, more distant than the few metres that separated them.

“Be careful,” John mumbled. The words were hollow. She found herself strangely unconcerned about Sherlock. She flagged a taxi.

John placed her bag on the seat and glanced up at the flat window. She forced a smile and a wave at the fluttering curtain and thought:

Good call packing the Browning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oblique reference to the original story "The Adventure of the Blanched Soldier," which gives us that great line: "The good Watson had at that time deserted me for a wife, the only selfish action which I can recall in our association."


	2. Denial

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The scourge of the WIP ficcer—which I am, despite fervent desire not to be—is that sometimes the story changes as you go. In the first version of this, Sherlock had a total of six words of dialogue. It was a Jolto fic, straight up, no chaser. But with every revision, Sherlock’s part grows. And like kudzu, she is taking over the fic. So it’s better to call this a pre-slash Fem!Johnlock fic now, with a side of wistful Jolto. Up to the reader if that's an improvement or not :)

“Am I allowed to know where we’re going?”

“No. It’s a surprise,” said John.

“I don’t like surprises, Watson. My last surprise gave me this charming profile.” He flashed the left side of his face.

John leaned forward and brushed the scarred skin with her fingers.

He smiled a tight, tentative smile.

The compartment door slid open.

“Ticket, please.”

John handed over the ticket.

“Would you like me to put that up for you?” asked the ticket-collector, pointing to the bag at John’s feet.

“No, thank you. I’ll take care of it.” She put the bag on her lap and draped her arms over it in a childishly possessive gesture.

“Very well, miss.”

When the door closed, John said,

“You mightn’t like it. I’m pants at planning holidays. Plus, everything looks like paradise online. We might get there and wish that we were back in Helmand.”

“Nonsense,” he said. “If we were back in Helmand, we wouldn’t be together, and that _is_ the point, Watson.”

He took John’s hand in his and pressed his lips to the top of it.

“’Watson’ is okay? Or should I call you something else?”

“Mum named me ‘Hannah’; friends call me ‘John.’ I can’t imagine you calling me either.”

“Well, if you can’t imagine it, it’s not going to happen, is it?”

John laughed. “No, I guess not, _James_.”

He leaned back in the seat and stretched his right arm out against the seat cushion. He closed his eyes, and his entire face softened into the expression of a man clearly savouring something.

“That sounds as good as I imagined.”

When his eyes opened, his countenance was once again paved with stoicism. He shrugged.

“How about I just call you ‘love’?”

“Alright.”

A champagne cork popped in John’s heart; her chest cavity filled with festive effervescence.

I remember this. This is falling in love. Or going mad. Or both.

“This civilian clothing, love, is...” He ran a hand down the front of his dark blue jumper.

John bit her lip. “You’d prefer your uniform?”

“Not at all, but you grant me more style than I ever possessed. This is…soft?” He fingered the fabric and added, “I don’t know much about fashion beyond multi-terrain pattern.”

“Cashmere. I don’t know much either, but there was a case. GQ photoshoot. It looked nice—before it was covered in blood splatter.”

John shook her head sharply. No thinking about cases.

“And the arm?” His left hand rested limply across his thigh.

“I don’t know why…”

John blinked and looked out the window as if the passing landscape could give her the answer. The last time she’d seen him, when he came to visit her in hospital, he was unscarred, uninjured.

Why would she…?

His voice cut into her thoughts. “It doesn’t matter, love. One arm or two, I still love you.” His words soothed her, and for a while, John let the steady rattle of the train lulled her into a half-slumber.

“So where are we going? Give me a clue at least.”

“Clues are not really my area, but it’s a very long train ride and then a ferry.”

“In that case, you should sleep. I’ll take first watch.”

John squeezed the bag to her chest, leaned against the glass, and closed her eyes.

* * *

“Anyone joining you?” The woman behind the counter peered out the window at the Jeep.

“In a manner of speaking.” John nudged the bag on the floor with her foot.

“It’s just that this is our most romantic offering. Very popular with newlyweds.”

John took the keys. “Thank you.”

* * *

“Guess that makes you the blushing bride.”

“Shut up.”

“Look! You _are_ blushing! Adorable.”

“Will you please shut up? I don’t remember you being this insufferable.”

He laughed. “Shall I carry you across the threshold?”

“My imagination is powerful, but not _that_ powerful,” John said ruefully.

* * *

“A lighthouse.” They marched up the circular staircase.

“Yeah.”

“You brought a career _soldier_ to a lighthouse.”

“All the nice girls love a solider.”

“It’s sailor.”

“Yeah, that’s why I brought you to a lighthouse.”

“Cheeky.”

“Scenic views,” John squinted out the tiny window, “lovely walks on the beach, and, most importantly, this time of year, virtually abandoned. The sleeping quarters are actually in the keeper’s house, but we also have keys to this.”

“But why here, love? Why the edge of Scotland?”

She sighed.

“Because I wanted to put as much distance between us and my day-to-day as this island nation will allow. Because I want to be alone in my delusion and someone once told me that talking to inanimate objects in public attracts attention. Because it came up first when I googled ‘romantic getaways with your never-lover’s cremains.’ Do you like it?”

“I like it. Come here.”

John stood and approached him. He wove his fingers in hers. She reached her hand to his cheek.

“I love you,” he said.

“I love you, too.” The words tumbled easily out of John’s mouth.

Their lips met. First kiss. Warm and wet and soft and tender. He squeezed her fingers; she curled her hand around his neck, leaning into him, feeling the solid weight of his chest.

Perfect.

“I wanted to do that for so long,” he said.

“It was worth the wait.”

* * *

John set the cheese beside the bread and tomato.

“A meagre picnic, but there is dessert,” she said, holding up a milk bar.

“I subsisted on military rations most of my adult life, love; I’m not much of an epicurean.”

“How about a walk on the beach before it gets dark?”

“Good idea.”

* * *

John tucked the tails of two scarves in her jacket and pulled a cap snuggly on her head. She trod down the hill to the shoreline and breathed in the cold salty air.

“You remember twenty-one grams?” he asked.

She nodded. “First real conversation we had. You caught me praying my rosary. Even before the VC, you were a legend, and I was so star-struck that I didn’t notice your hand dripping blood. Some doctor, I was.”

“I asked you if you were a woman of faith.”

“You said you were an atheist.”

“You said that you thought there weren’t any atheists in foxholes.”

John laughed. “You asked me when the last time I saw a foxhole was.”

“You stitched me up. Good as new.”

“I was nervous.”

“So was I.”

“I babbled. Told you about a 1901 experiment where tuberculosis patients were weighed immediately before and after death. The researcher concluded from the difference in measurements that the soul weighed twenty-one grams.”

“I said how that didn’t seem right, the soul be something as light as your rosary. I asked you to pray for my twenty-one grams. Did you?”

“Yes, of course.”

He nodded. “I knew you would. Selfish. I just wanted you to think of me once and a while, if only for the few seconds of a Hail Mary.”

“I thought of you more than that, James. I’m thinking of you now. Only you.”

He smiled and put his arm around her shoulder, pulling her close for a gentle kiss.

“Dinner?” he asked.

John nodded. “And then, well, we should try out the honeymoon suite.” She wiggled her eyebrows suggestively.

He laughed. “Prepare to be ravished, my bride.”

* * *

John set the white case on the table. She flipped open the lid.

“It’s called a memory-box.”

She extended her arms and laced her fingers together, stretching them like a pianist about to play. She stared at the contents.

“I’ve got wedding night jitters,” she admitted.

“’Three Continents’ Watson? Really? So the rumours…”

“Were all true, but, up until now, the cocks have been flesh and blood, attached to flesh and blood. I’ve never…”

She held up the glass dildo and unsheathed it from a clear case. There was a grey cylinder at the core. She remembered loading the cylinder with the ash in her bedroom on Baker Street, thinking at the time that the process reminded her of cleaning her gun.

“What’s that?”

John returned the dildo to the box and lifted the atomizer.

“I was supposed to fill this with your cologne. Olfactory cues are strong triggers for memory.”

“It’s empty.”

“Yeah, I couldn’t remember you smelling like anything. Not anything I could put in a bottle. Valour. Honour. Duty.”

“For the best. They smell old and dusty. Like a forgotten bit of ribbon and metal in a drawer. Not romantic.”

“And that?”

“It’s for music.” She went across the room to her bag and rummaged through it until she found her iPod.

“Please tell me we’re not shagging to ‘God Save the Queen.’”

John laughed. “No. I would think it would be obvious.”

She touched a button and the space filled with a crescendoing orchestra.

He smiled. “Of course.”

“I had to get a requisition signed…”

“You caught me.”

“You shut the laptop so fast and looked so guilty, I was sure it was…”

“Porn.”

John nodded.

“So when I turned to show it to you…”

“I thought, ‘Christ, he’s pervy,’ but it turned out to be…”

“Hobbits. On their way to Mordor.”

John laughed.

“I invited you to watch it with me.”

“And there we sat, on very uncomfortable chairs, side-by-side.”

“That space between the chairs! If you knew how many times I fantasised about crossing it, closing it. But it might as well have been a moat or a chasm.”

“It was ten, fifteen minutes.”

“I invited you back. And day by day, week by week, we finished it.”

“We chatted. About books, films, everything, but what was going on around us.”

“I never wanted to share anything with anyone, and, suddenly, I did. I hid it away after that. I didn’t want anyone to see. To know.”

“Even me.”

* * *

They stood on opposite sides of the bed. John shifted from one bare foot to the other.

“I’m not made of glass, love.”

John chuckled. “Well, technically, you are. Glass and ash. But, when in doubt, start with the practical.” She crossed the bed crawling and raised up on her knees. She pulled the jumper off one arm, over his head and down the other arm. Then she did the same with the vest. Then she ran her hands over his chest, hard muscle, scarred skin, and downy hair. She pressed her lips over his beating heart.

“It beats for you,” he whispered.

“When did you become a poet?” she teased. She wrapped her arms around him. He pressed his lips to the top of her head and gently stroked her hair.

“When I started writing love letters.”

John stripped to the waist and turned. He piled her hair on top of her head with one hand and bent to trail kiss along the nape of her neck and down the ridge of her shoulder. He let her hair fall. His fingertips ghosted over her skin; one hand reached around cupping her breast, flicking the nipple with his thumb.

She turned back and unbuckled his belt.

“I would’ve taken such good care of you. Hell, security guard, nurse, housekeeper, cook, secretary, I do all that now.”

He stepped back from the bed and she eased his jeans and pants down his legs.

“Help I could hire. Sex I could buy. Love, the kind of love I wanted, wasn’t for sale or lease.”

John looked down.

His shoes and socks were still on.

* * *

“Well done, idiot,” John said to the empty room. She was half-naked in the middle of the bed, dildo and bottle of lube beside her. “Get the man’s shoes off.”

* * *

They laughed as his fingers tangled with hers. He sat on the edge of the bed, and they untied shoelaces and slipped his shoes and socks off.

“Sorry,” she said.

“No apologies needed. I’m new here myself.”

She crawled up into his lap and pushed him back onto the bed. They kissed long and deep, tongues touching, lips pressing and parting and pressing anew. She tugged off her jeans and pants.

“It’s cold,” she said.

“Come here, my love.”

She crawled beneath the covers, slotting her body beside his, feeling his warmth around her. They lay face-to-face on their sides. He draped her leg over his hip and she snuggled closer.

“My beautiful girl,” he murmured into her hair.

His left side was pressed into the mattress. “Is this alright?” she asked, with a concerned frown.

He brushed her cheek. “You’re joking, right? This is heaven, love. Let me inside you. Please.”

“Come here, my love,” she said, running a hand down his hard shaft.

She angled her hips, and he slid into her.

_Pinch! Pinch-pinch!_

* * *

John’s eyes fluttered open. “More lube.” She coated the dildo thoroughly.

* * *

He slid into her.

“Oh, love,” he breathed. “Yes, yes, yes.” He thrust slowly, shallowly. She buried her face in his neck and listened to his breath grow ragged. She turned even further into him. He pushed up, making to sink his cock completely inside her.

* * *

_Ouch!_

“Too deep?”

John tried the motion again.

_Ouch!_

“Yeah, too deep.”

* * *

“I’m not going to last long, love,” he huffed. He gripped her shoulder hard for leverage and thrust quickly. John rolled her sweaty forehead against his. “S’okay. First times are always quick. I love you.”

“Love you, too. Oh my love!” He kissed her sloppily and then groaned. John tightened her muscles around him as he panted and shook. He brushed his hands over her face, chest, back, and stomach.

John clung to him and tensed her body. She cried out,

“James, James, _James_!”

* * *

John sat up on the edge of the bed, naked. The room was frigid. She immediately slipped on her jumper and pulled a blanket around her waist. She dropped her head in her hands and fought the urge to cry.

“John Watson, you are fucking pathetic,” she said to the darkness. “Even in fantasy, you fake it.”

With the blanket trailing behind her, John padded across the cold floor. She used the toilet, cleaned the dildo, and returned it to its sheath. Then she padded back, tossed the dildo on the far side of the bed and crawled back into the warm spot amongst the blankets and sheets.

“Well, actually coming tonight is impossible, not with all that poking and prodding. Morning, it is.” She flopped onto her stomach and pulled the entire set of blankets over her head.

“Calling something is impossible is like waving a red flag in front of a bull. With me as bull, of course.”

“Christ Almighty!”

“Not exactly, but I can appreciate the parallel. John.”

“You cannot be here, Sherlock. You cannot be in my head. There’s only room for one delusion at a time. Go away!”

“No. Not until the impossible becomes improbable. _John_.”

John felt the weight on her back, the breath in her ear. “I’ve already made love to one ghost tonight, thank you very much. Reached my quota for the day. Please leave,” she said in as level-headed a voice as she could muster.

Sherlock’s voice, on the other hand, was a low, husky purr.

“Maybe you don’t want to make love. Maybe you want to _fuck_.”

“Christ, Christ, Christ,” whined John into the pillow. She tried to shake the image of Sherlock from her mind. Sherlock in The Coat. Sherlock in a dressing gown. The blue one. The other blue one.

“What about The Suit, John? You like the suit. I know you like the suit.”

The Suit. With the purple blouse…twirling, hands flailing, data falling together in a dramatic formation, her mouth in a perfect O that probably resembled…

John pushed a pillow underneath her until it was between her legs.

“That’s right. Good girl, so good. What I would do to you. Take you apart. See what makes you tick. Put you back together again. New. And. Improved.”

John’s hips began to move despite her mewls of protest. “Not your area. Married to your Work. You’re extraordinary, you are, but we’re just flatmates.”

“You know what’s extraordinary, John? How unbelievably responsive you are.” John’s skin prickled as she felt Sherlock’s razor-sharp gaze run up and down her body, from the nape of her neck to the back of her knees.

“Now I know it’s a fantasy,” muttered John, but the familiar sensation was already there. She pulled the jumper over her head and arched her back so her bare nipples grazed the bedding. She rut harder against the pillow beneath her.

John chanted Sherlock’s name as the first orgasm ripped through her. Then she waited, motionless. This was not the flash-bang that she was accustomed to. Her body was still sensitive, still on edge, still prickling. Still ready. John felt a stab of fear. If she moved just a little bit…

“Fuck, fuck, FUCK, Sherlock?!” The second orgasm was no less powerful from the first. John’s mind reeled; she had no point of reference, no precedent. She dragged her lower body across the bed, crawling forward until her head hit the wall, scraping her hips against the sheets, feeling the third—mercifully, in her mind, smaller—orgasm hit her.

“I’m here, John. It’s okay.”

“It is not okay,” wailed John, throwing herself on her back. “I am not that kind of woman. I don’t have multiple orgasms. Not real ones, at any rate. I am lucky if I have one. Even when I want to. Even when all the conditions are right. Even when I _try_.”

“The impossible just became record-breaking.” John could hear the smirk. “My work here is done.”

John’s whole body felt doused in cold water. She sat up and shouted angrily, “I travelled more than a thousand kilometres just so that you wouldn’t intrude on my grief, my thoughts!”

“And yet here I am. What might we deduce about your mind?” Sherlock’s voice faded.

“That I’m crackers,” groaned John, diving back under the covers.

* * *

“G’morning, love,” he said. He was lying on his side, looking at her.

“Good morning. How long have you been awake?”

“Since dawn.”

“Securing the perimeter?”

“Watching you sleep. I want to know everything about you. The story behind every freckle, every line. What you feel. What you think.”

The chilly room was a harsh contrast to the warm bed, and John had no desire to leave the cosy cocoon just yet.

“Well,” she said, easing herself on top of him. “For the record,” she moved down his body, nuzzling and nudging, “I think that morning sex is the best sex.” She took his smooth, heavy cock in her mouth.

“Yes, ma’am,” he said, grinning.

* * *

“More coffee?”

“Thank you,” she said.

“It’s pretty cold, love. Are we going to stay out here all morning?”

“Hypnotic. The sea. I could watch it forever. If I lived here, I’d never watch crap telly again.”

“Look!” He pointed to the swathe of dark clouds on the horizon. “I’m no sailor, love, but even I know…”

“Hmm?”

“There’s a storm coming.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This isa little bit of dangerous for me to write. Like an ex-junkie writing about a needle factory. Fantasy affairs like the one John is creating with Sholto require more memory than imagination, unfortunately. But writing stories anonymously is cheaper, more fun, and less humiliating than therapy, so on we go :)


	3. Anger

“COWARD! VC, MY ARSE!”

A mug hit the wall.

“I don’t deny it, love!”

“YOU SHOULD’VE SAID SOMETHING, IN THE BEGINNING!”

“In country? People would’ve talked!”

“THEY DO LITTLE ELSE! YOU WERE MAJOR JAMES BLOODY SHOLTO! YOU COULD’VE SILENCED THEM WITH ONE FUCKING LOOK!”

“I was your commanding officer! It would’ve changed how you did your job. It would’ve changed how _I_ did _my_ job. There was a war on!”

“OH, DON’T YOU DARE BLAME IT ON THE WAR! WE COULD’VE HAD A LIFE TOGETHER!”

“I should have. After you were injured, I should have told you, I know.”

“DAMN RIGHT YOU SHOULD HAVE! I WAS BROKEN! IT WOULD’VE CHANGED…EVERYTHING!”

“You have every right to be angry…”

“I SURE DO!”

“…but then, so do I. You weren’t the only one broken by the war, love.”

John turned to the window. The wind howled, and the rain beat hard against the pane.

“You weren’t the only one to lay in a hospital bed. You weren’t the only one who felt completely adrift in a world that seemed less real than the warzone you’d left behind. You weren’t the only one with scars. You weren’t the only one who longed to see a genuinely friendly face—no hero-worship, no demonizing.”

John said nothing.

“Not a word from you, love. Not. One. Word. Where were you? Don’t say you didn’t know. Even if you cut yourself off completely from Murray and the other lads, the scandal made the news for quite a bit of time. We both know why. Shall we talk about the elephant in the room?”

_WHAM!_

“Now, see here, I object to being referred to as any type of pachyderm…”

“NO! NO!”

John shoved Sherlock until she backed out of the room, stuttering protests in retreat. John shut the door and locked it. “Don’t worry, John. I’ll just be out here,” called Sherlock. “Deducing cracks in the wall.” John heard the distinct _thunk-thunk_ of a rubber ball bouncing.

James continued, “I waited. And waited. And then Murray visited me in hospital, right before I was discharged, and he told me what you were doing. Assistant to a detective? I laughed. It seemed like something out of a novel. I found your blog. I read your cases, and I read between the lines. And then I realized that it was too late. You didn’t want to be reminded of your past. And you would never agree to be shackled to a broken-down relic of the last chapter of your life; not when the new chapter was so shiny, so exciting. _She gave you something to live for. She gave you something to look forward to._ I wanted it to be me. Right words at the right time…”

“….it could’ve been,” said John.

“BUT IT WASN’T!” cried Sherlock with a _thunk_ at the door.

“SHUT UP!” yelled John. Then her voice fell. “I’m sorry, James. I’m so sorry that I didn’t come…” Her vision blurred.

“Oh, love. Don’t cry, please.”

“I’m not going to cry. I’m not.” John rifled through her bag and pulled out a bottle of pills. She tapped out two and swallowed them dry. “I’m not going to think about you,” she looked around the empty room, “or you,” she turned and stared at the door. “Or any of this. Until morning.”

“Good night, love.”

“Good night, John.”

John fell back atop the bed, fully clothed, and closed her eyes.

The storm raged on. Without her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you like this story, you might like [Ash](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1672562). If you like both of them, I think we should be friends. We could sit around and talk about ash, after all there are 240 different kinds. 243, you say? Well, we'd have a lot to talk about.
> 
> It _is_ a rather lonely life. Why do you ask? :)


	4. Depression and Bargaining

“You’re gone!” wailed John.

“I’m right here, love,” he said.

John shook her head and looked down at the round handle that jutted out between her legs.

“No, you’re not. It’s just me and a voice in my head and a glass mausoleum. It’s just memories and fantasies and, minute by minute, it’s getting more difficult to tell the difference between the two.” She pulled the dildo out of herself and stared at the one errant pubic hair plastered to the side. The room smelled of her sex and lubricant. “We could’ve had a life together, but all that possibility, all that promise, is gone. We’ll never know what might have been, truly. It might have been beautiful.”

The storm outside had passed, but John took no notice of the calm. She felt a void inside her, like a bubble, like a balloon, filling her chest cavity with air, growing and growing, stretching its thin membrane.

Until it burst.

She cried. She cried tears of sorrow for his pain and his loneliness. She cried tears of pity for her selfishness and her stubbornness. She cried tears of anger for the loss and the waste and the cowardice of them both. She cried loud, wrenching sobs. She sniffled, and then she stopped. And then the sadness swelled anew and she cried again.

She had come prepared for tears. Soon, the bed was littered with crumpled white tissues.

“What will I do without you?” Even to her own ears, the question rang false.

“Oh, come now, love. You’ll do just as you were, which is to say, just fine.”

“I’m not going back. I’m going to stay here, with you. They must need physicians around here. Or I can do something else. I’m not afraid of hard work, farm labour, whatever.”

“And just abandon London? Baker Street?” A certain word hung in the air unspoken.

John ignored it.

“Yes,” she said resolutely. “People do it all the time. Go out for cigarettes and never come back.”

“You don’t smoke.”

“You know what I mean. I want to stay here with you, in this world, in this space. Maybe the proprietor needs some help…”

“Love.”

“I’m going to stay,” repeated John. She punctuated her statement by flopping back onto the bed and pulling the bedding over herself.

In the dark cocoon, she thought about their life. A cottage in the country, far from the maddening crowd, as they say, a proper garden, little stone paths everywhere, bees…

No. Not bees.

Maybe she could find such a place like that nearby. Not buy, of course, but maybe rent, for a couple of months, just until she got herself sorted, new name, too, Hannah’s not so bad…

“Love, you need to get up. You’ll miss your train,” he said.

“Fuck the train. _We_ are staying here.”

“There’s time for a short walk and a short good-bye.”

“Are you deaf? I’m not leaving you.”

He sighed. “Well, you’ve got the place in a bit of a mess. How ‘bout tidying up?”

John looked around her with fresh eyes. “Alright,” she said and set about putting the room to rights. She made the bed and binned the tissue. She got dressed. She cleaned the dildo and returned it to the memory-box. She kept moving, and some half-hour later, realized that she was packed and the room was restored to the state that she’d found it.

“Let’s go to the beach. Take me with you,” he said. John stuck the dildo inside her jacket and zipped it up.

The sand was strewn with debris, both from land and sea.

John walked and walked. When she stopped, he said,

“Leave me here, love.”

“No.”

“Please.”

“What, I am just going to leave a dildo here? On the beach? Crazy. No.”

“The ash. Bury me here.”

“No, no, no. Please don’t ask me, James.”

“I _am_ asking you. Let. Me. Go. Bury me here.”

“The waves will come. The tide will take you away.”

“Yes.”

“If I leave the ash, will you still be here?” she asked, touching her temple.

Silence.

“No, no, no, James…”

His voice was slow and deliberate, gentle but firm, “It’s called the _chain_ of command, Watson. You can only have one commanding officer, otherwise, there’s confusion and…”

“Chaos,” said John. “Madness.”

“Yes. I might have been a horrible lover or husband—we’ll never know—but I was a damn good soldier. Bury me here.”

“No. I don’t want you to leave me. And I don't want to leave you. I’ll be good. I’ll be the best little wife, homemaker, nurse, cook, whatever you need. Just don’t leave me. Don't make me leave you. I thought you loved me. I thought you wanted me.”

“Don't play games now, love. You never played them before. Bury me here. And say good-bye.”

“No!”

“Go, Watson! That’s an order!”

The noise that escaped John was raw and ugly. She felt as if something thin and sharp had been thrust deep inside her and then removed and she was slowly exsanguinating. She dropped to her knees and bent until her forehead touched the sand and cried out again.

Then she removed her gloves and began to dig.

* * *

“Mum, why is that lady crying?”

“Shhh!”

“Tickets, please.”

John handed over the ticket.

“Would you like me to put that up for you?”

“Sure,” mumbled John. She blew her nose and added, “Thank you.”

“Not at all, Miss.”


	5. Acceptance

John took the stairs slowly, slower than the first time she’d ever climbed them.

Maybe she’s on a case. Or at Bart’s, just need a bit of time, to settle in, unpack, prepare.

Re-entry, always difficult.

“Hello” said John, setting her bag down. “How’ve you been?” The words sounded scripted; the delivery, clumsy.

Sherlock stood in the centre of the room, arms at her sides, shifting from foot to foot.

Christ, she’s about to recite ‘The boy stood on the burning deck’ in front of the class.

“I am sorry for your loss.”

It sounded rehearsed. She needed to rehearse that? Of course she did.

“Thank you.” Polite. When all else fails, be polite. And then there’s always…

“Tea?” asked John. _Exit stage left._ She headed toward the kitchen.

“Yes, please. There’s milk. John?”

“Hmm?” John halted and turned back.

“Bill Murray stopped by while you were gone. He left something.” Sherlock pointed to John’s armchair.

A programme from a memorial service.

John eyed it warily, from a distance, like a sleeping snake. The photo was the one that the papers always used. He stared back at her, grim, solemn, uniformed and decorated. She said, “I guess with this it wasn’t difficult for you to work it out—“

“Oh, I had deduced it before Murray arrived—“

The words, the tone were like sparks to kindling.

“Really?!” snapped John; her voice dripped with venom. “You deduced that I was on an imaginary romantic rendezvous with my dead commanding officer?! That I was using a dildo containing a soul’s weight of his cremated remains?! Wow, you _are_ good.”

“I know ash…”

“ _YOU KNOW NOTHING!_ ”

John rushed at her, left hand fisted and drawn back, nostrils flared, brown eyes boring into startled grey ones. You know nothing of me. Of him. Of us. Of what I am capable of. Of what I have lost.

Watson!

Without thinking, John turned her head to the bag on the floor and yelled,

“ _SHUT UP!_ ”

“John.”

John looked back at Sherlock; her hands flew to her mouth like a child who _really_ hadn’t expected the ball to go through the window. She had done it, well and truly. Sherlock didn’t need to be a proper genius to decipher the truth: John was mad. She had shown her tell like a novice card player, a minnow flinching before a shark.

Two voices. Two commanding officers. Chaos. Madness.

The room spun. The floor rose.

Like Alice down the rabbit hole, John was falling, tumbling. She hit the bottom, and two grenades exploded in her brain.

She yelped.

When she opened her eyes, Sherlock was standing over her, frowning, with a small antique bottle in hand.

“Are those _actual_ smelling salts?” asked John, realizing she was in her chair. She gripped the arms as the vertigo abated.

“Yes,” said Sherlock. “Because you _actually_ swooned. Or had a psychotic break, but I prefer the romantic term. I’m a detective, not a doctor.”

John stared. Then she giggled; it was a high-pitched, slightly hysterical noise.

Sherlock laughed too, a genuine one that created those charming parenthetical creases around her mouth. Then her expression cooled, and she said soberly,

“Splash of milk. Two sugars.”

Make tea. Right.

Pressing hard on the armrests, John pushed herself to standing. She heard the crinkle of paper and looked down. The programme was still on the seat.

She’d sat on him!

John gave a snorted in amusement and walked to the kitchen. She filled the kettle and set it to boil on the stove. She took down a box of PG Tips. Sherlock sat at the kitchen table behind her.

“How was Bedfordshire?”

“Good. I wrote the case up myself. Posted it on your blog.”

“Really?” John turned with her eyebrows raised. “Well, that’s a first!”

“I wasn’t sure…”

If I’d return. Christ. John took down two mugs.

“I know nothing, John. But if you tell me, then I will know.”

It was a confession of _something_ , but John wasn’t buying it. Yet.

“I thought filling your head with rubbish makes it hard to get at the stuff that matters.”

Sherlock huffed. “If I know, then I can fight.”

Fight? Fight _me_? She didn’t really think…

“I am so sorry about earlier,” said John. “I like to think that I wouldn’t have actually struck you.”

“Not fight _you_ , idiot. Fight _him_ for _you_.”

She doesn’t understand the way that sounds. She doesn’t mean what I think she means. Do something. Make a joke. “What, like duelling pistols at dawn? With a ghost?” John forced a laugh. She made to turn around and jumped.

Sherlock was beside her, her face a breath’s distance from John’s. She said in a quick, low voice, “I will fight ever goblin, ghoul, and ghost that your mind can conjure. On whatever battlefield, visible or invisible. Yes, I know how it sounds and, yes, I mean _exactly_ what you think I mean.”

John blinked and swallowed.

“You can’t possibly understand—“

“Why not?”

“Because I don’t understand it myself.”

“John, the number of things that _I_ understand, but that _you_ do not understand is so vast as to be—“

“Yeah, yeah, I know. But this is not fibres or footprints. And telling your story and having it misunderstood or dismissed _is_ actually worse than saying nothing at all.” John looked down.

“Anything that would have you abandoning Baker Street for the frontier of,” Sherlock’s eyes performed their deductive dance across John’s face and down her body, “Scotland is not something I will endeavour to misunderstand or dismiss.”

John looked up at her. “You’re serious.”

Sherlock huffed. “I will not repeat myself.” Then, like a courtroom barrister having made her case, she strode back to the kitchen chair and sat down, arms crossed, awaiting John’s decision.

And John made it. And then she telegraphed her decision clearly, when, with a shaky hand, she put the box of tea bags back in the cupboard and took down a black tin.

“Well, if we’re going to do this, we’re going to need a whole pot.”

She looked over her shoulder at Sherlock, who, with a twitch of smile on her lips, seemed very satisfied with the verdict.

* * *

"So what did he call you?”

“In the army? Watson, of course.”

“No, what did he call you in your mind?”

“Love.”

“Not John?”

“No, Christ. Can you imagine?”

“I can imagine all kinds of things, John. You _like_ being called John.”

“Yeah, but…”

“I call you John. Lestrade calls you John. Even Mycroft has called you John on occasion, though her genetic predisposition toward pretention usually results in the use of titles or condescending epitaphs.”

John laughed. “My father never called me John,” she scoffed, then her eyes widened. “Oh, shit! Shit, shit, shit. Forget I said that.”

John refilled Sherlock’s mug and then her own.

“You know, this weekend I was his bride, then his ex, then his widow, but the truth is we were never even friends. Not in life. And not after death. He was my superior, in many, many ways. I admired him, greatly. I liked him. I learned a lot from him. There was camaraderie, of course. There was a war on. We were on the same side.”

“Did you love him?”

“No.” John shook her head. “I said I did. I said it so easily. It seemed…”

“…appropriate.”

“Horrid, isn’t it? I _should_ have loved him. He was a good man, a great man, even. He deserved loving. He deserved being cared for. And he loved me. Or so he said.”

“But he never told you in person? And you never suspected his feelings?”

John shook her head. “He was the most anti-social person I’d ever met. He always looked like he needed a friend.”

“But you weren’t friends.”

John shrugged. “It was the army. He was here,” she raised a flat hand, “and I was here,” she put her other hand below the first. “And for the most part, he kept himself to himself, as they say.”

“And after the army?”

“I was in hospital, in rehab, and then just plain lost. And then,” she put her mug down, “there was you. I hardly thought of him after that, even when the scandal came out in the papers.”

“Why do you delete Murray’s emails, John?”

“I am going to forget _how_ you know that.” John sighed and rubbed her eyes. “Because I don’t want to go to those events he’s always organizing. I don’t want to swap war stories. I don’t want to be reminded of that chapter of my life. Maybe one day, I’ll want to reminisce, but right now, I don’t need it and I don’t want it. Looking back makes you stumble. But then this package shows up, and it’s so out of the blue. Twenty-one grams of ash and a love letter! And then I start to look back and remember and then I start to imagine and then the line between what’s real and what’s not blurs. And then I’m lost again. I’m hearing voices and I’m screaming at empty rooms and deserted beaches and I’m going on a honeymoon and having sex with a ghost.”

Suddenly, John felt tired, preternaturally tired. She didn’t want to talk anymore. It all seemed so exhausting. She set her cup aside and rested her head on the table.

At the first brush of fingertips, John’s body jerked. The touch disappeared. John held her breath. And it returned. It was a light, gentle caress from temple to slope.

She’s petting me. Sherlock Holmes, the world’s only consulting detective, is _petting_ me.

John exhaled. Christ, it felt good. “Where’d you learn to do that?” she mumbled.

“YouTube.”

John snorted. She heard Sherlock laugh, too, and she didn’t care if it was true or if Sherlock was taking the piss, as long as it didn’t stop.

* * *

“If I didn’t have half a pot of tea in my bladder, I’d never move,” said John.

“We could retire to…”

John sat up quickly, too quickly, and gaped at Sherlock, ignoring the pain that shot through her lower back and the tiny amber rivulet that flowed across the table between them.

“I-I-I mean, on the sofa, the same,” Sherlock made a cartoonish stroking gesture, “that, if you wanted to, that is, if you found it, um, good.”

“Uh, okay, yeah, let me wash the train off me, and I’ll,” John waved at the sofa, “meet you.”

“Okay.”

Feels like a date. Like a first date. Jesus Fucking Christ.

* * *

 

But John’s nervousness evaporated when she finally laid her head on Sherlock’s pyjama-clad thigh and felt the first touch of fingers on her scalp. Her hair was still damp from the shower, but Sherlock didn’t seem to mind. Then sun set, and the room grew dark, but neither woman reached for the lamp. Finally, John said,

“He’s not in there.” She nodded to the bag still sitting where she’d dropped it hours earlier. “I buried him on the shore. He,” Christ, she hated saying these things aloud, “he asked me to, to put him there, to leave him there.”

“Do you hear him now?”

John shook her head. “Just the once, when I shouted at you. And then just my name. Watson.” She sighed. “I don’t want that memory-box. What do I do with it? I can’t exactly put it in the rubbish bin, can I? Recycle?” She laughed. “Who wants a poorly used dildo?”

“Would you like me to get rid of it?”

“You would do that?” John looked up at her, but could only make out a shadowy profile.

“Gladly. But, if I may ask, what constitutes ‘poor use’?”

John shrugged.

“In theory, the dildo was perfect. Intimate, beautiful, etcetera. But in practice, not so much. I’m not accustomed to, uh, using something like that. I tried. This way, that way, shallow, deep, fast, slow, but, uh, just wasn’t, um, effective. No matter how romantic the images in my head were. So I gave up.”

Sherlock hummed.

“Maybe that’s too much information,” said John hastily. “Sorry.”

“On certain topics, John, there’s no such thing as too much information.”

“Got a file labelled ‘John Watson’s Failed Masturbatory Techniques’ in that Mind Palace of yours?”

“You’d be surprised.”

John rolled onto her back and looked up. She saw two rows of white teeth in the darkness, glowing like the Cheshire cat’s smile. Sherlock snickered, and John laughed a full-bodied sound that bordered on guffaw. “Now I _know_ you’re taking the piss. Ridiculous woman!”

When their laughter died, John said, “You were there, you know. In my head. Being an arrogant, insufferable, infuriating know-it-all.”

“Glad I didn’t disappoint.”

“Nah. To be honest, I was dreading coming back here, but right now, I can’t imagine why. You’ve been damn near perfect.”

“It won’t last.”

“Don’t care. Tonight’s enough. Tomorrow can take care of itself.”

“And yesterday?”

“Yesterday can sod off.”

And with that, John curled on her side and pressed her nose into the silk of Sherlock’s dressing gown. She felt a blanket settle along the length of her. “He was a good man and a great soldier, and I’m a better person for having known him,” she said. "And he was right: you can’t have two commanding officers. I’m where I belong.” She yawned.

“Rest, John.”

John closed her eyes and pulled the blanket over her shoulder.

“Yes, ma’am.” 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!


End file.
